Czeslaw Milosz was a renowned poet, novelist, essayist and translator, who influenced the young generation towards the turn of the 20th century through his pre-war and wartime collections. He regarded himself as a Polish poet, simply because it was his native mother tongue and he chose to compose his creations in Polish, despite the fact that he was born in Lithuania and not Poland. While he authored all his prose, poetry and essay collections in Polish language, he also exhibited his caliber in translation, which included the Polish version of ‘Psalms’ from Greek and Hebrew, apart from translated works of numerous eminent authors into Polish, namely, William Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Walt Whitman, and Charles Baudelaire. Moreover, his works have been translated into over 42 languages, by various poets, such as Robert Hass, Robert Pinsky, and Peter Dale Scott. His literary works won him several prestigious awards, including the Nobel Prize in 1980, besides a number of honorary doctorate degrees from American and Polish universities. His most notable works are ‘Zniewolony umysl’ (The Captive Mind, 1953), ‘Zdobycie wladzy’ (The Seizure of Power, 1955), ‘Traktat poetycki’ (A Poetical Treatise, 1957), and ‘Rodzinna Europa’ (Native Realm: A Search for Self Definition, 1959)

After earning his law degree, he traveled to Paris in 1931 where he met his distant cousin Oscar Milosz, a Lithuanian French-language poet, who became his inspiration for poetry.

In 1931, he established the Polish avant-garde poetic group ‘Zagary’, along with other poets, namely, Aleksander Rymkiewicz, Jozef Maslinski, Jerzy Zagorski, Teodor Bujnicki, and Jerzy Putrament.

He released his first book of poems titled ‘Poemat o czasie zastyglym’ (Poem of the Frozen Time) in 1934.

In 1936, he started working as a literary commentator at Radio Wilno, but was dismissed a year later for his leftist views. He published his second poetry collection ‘Trzy zimy’ (Three Winters), which was well-received by literary critics.

He moved to Warsaw in 1937 where he took up a job with Polish Radio and spent the entire World War II writing for various underground presses and working as a janitor at the University Library.

When the War ended, he joined the newly formed Polish communist government as a diplomat, first in New York City and then Washington DC. However, he defected in 1951 and received political asylum in Maison-Lafitte, outside Paris.

He released ‘Ocalenie’ (Rescue) in 1945 as a collection of pre-war and wartime poems, which went on to become one of the most notable works of 20th century Polish poetry.

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During his defection in Paris, he worked as a freelance writer, authoring novels ‘The Captive Mind’ (1953), ‘The Seizure of Power’ (1955), ‘The Issa Valley’ (1955), and autobiography ‘Native Realm: A Search for Self Definition’ (1959).

He completed two volumes of poetry, namely, ‘The Light of Day’ (1954) and ‘A Poetical Treatise’ (1957), which were banned in Poland and later published by the Instytut Literacki in Paris.

He relocated to the United States in 1960 to work as a lecturer in Polish literature at the University of California, Berkeley. A year later in 1961, he became a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures.

He continued to publish poetry collections in America, some being ‘King Popiel and Other Poems’ (1962), ‘Gucio Enchanted’ (1965), ‘City Without a Name’ (1969), and ‘Where the Sun Rises and Where it Sets’ (1974).

He received American citizenship in 1970.

For years, his works were banned in Poland and were circulated only through underground sources, but after he received the Nobel Prize in 1980, the communist government relented and his works started getting issued legally.

His popular prose works include ‘The History of Polish Literature’ (1969), ‘Visions from San Francisco Bay’ (1969), ‘Private Obligations’ (1974), ‘The Land of Ulro’ (1977), ‘The Witness of Poetry’ (1983), and ‘Starting from My Streets’ (1985).

He married Janina Dluska in 1944, with whom he fathered two sons – Anthony (1947) and John Peter (1951). Janina died from Alzheimer’s disease in 1986.

In 1992, he re-married Carol Thigpen, a US-born historian and associate dean at Emory University, Atlanta. She died in 2002.

He died on August 14, 2004, at his residence in Krakow, Poland, at the age of 93.

He was interred at the ancient Skalka Roman Catholic Church, Krakow, in the presence of thousands of his admirers, including prominent figures from the Polish cultural and political life.

His works have been translated into several languages by various popular translators, such as Peter Dale Scott, Robert Hass, Jane Zielonko, and Robert Pinsky.

The Czeslaw Milosz Award was established by the Lithuania National Artists Association, Journalists’ Union in Lithuania and Polish Institute in Vilnius to award unique and finest literary works in Poland and Lithuania.

The year 2011 was declared as ‘The Milosz Year’, which saw a conference on his relations with America at the Yale University, an exhibition of his works by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and a large conference in Krakow